Portable Chef Blog: Tasty Licks

Amanda Williams’s radio show – August 1

August 15, 2022 No Comments

I had the opportunity to be on with Amanda Williams on her radio show again, and had a great wide-ranging talk.

  • 0:01 Amanda talks about the importance or reducing processed food – and talks Portable Chef up as a provider of customized meal delivery! Thanks, Amanda – I don’t do a lot of self-promotion, so the kind words are extra-appreciated.
  • 2:50 We talk about small family farms and how they tend to produce the most nutritious meals. We also talk about the language barrier that exists to buying good food – the best, most delicious and nutritious salmon, sourced from animals that live in the wild, and salmon that is farmed under factory-like conditions are both referred to as “salmon” – and that makes the distinction harder to come by for most consumers. We talk a lot about how Portable Chef is determined to find the best providers for use in its cooking.
  • 6:20 Amanda asks about Portable Chef’s clients, and what sort of needs they have. We really have two general categories of clients: (1) those that have very specific diets that need managing – either to personalize meals to help cope with medical conditions, or specific diets that they’d like to follow, or specific diet-related goals, such as losing weight. (2) People that just want the convenience of receiving meals with great ingredients every week, and not having to order them.
  • 9:15 We discuss renal diets, a particularly tricky set of dietary requirements that require management of micronutrients that are sometimes difficult to discern – sodium is relatively simple to track and even fairly easy to detect by tasting, but potassium and phosphorus more challenging to monitor.
  • 10:45 Many of our clients are diabetic or pre-diabetic. While those diets are *simple* in the sense that a good diet would feature elimination of sugars and careful management of carbohydrates, they are very *difficult* to follow, because carbs are in almost everything – particularly in foods that are otherwise convenient to purchase and prepare.
  • 12:30 We discuss the importance of variety in diets, and in the meals we prepare – particularly, variety’s important role in making sure that clients remain on the diets they are on. It’s why we make hundreds of different dishes each week, so even clients getting three meals a day every day can have the variety they need to keep at it.

 

 

 

 

Portable Chef radio interview

August 12, 2022 No Comments

 

 

Hi! I’m excited to be a regular guest on Amanda Williams’ radio show about nutrition and personal health. We covered a lot of ground on our first discussion, and Amanda was a very gracious host while I found my radio legs! Here’s the first episode; we’ll continue to post the segments here. Some topics we discussed included:

  • 0:01 Host Amanda Williams talks about the importance of food in overall health, and throws Portable Chef some kind words.
  • 3:22 Portable Chef’s origin story, and its mission to provide healthy customized meals made with care and sourcing great ingredients.
  • 7:14 The importance to Portable Chef of supporting small organic farmers and farm animal welfare, and how that leads to meals you can feel good about eating, that is the most nutritious, and that tastes the best. I got a chance to quote a childhood friend’s dad, a passionate foodie who once unannounced stood up at Thanksgiving dinner and yelled, “90% OF COOKING IS BUYING!!!”
  • 9:32 We discuss how we go about customizing meals for our personal chef clients for complex dietary requirements (including keto, low-Fodmap, paleo, low-sodium, and other diets), illness management, and customer tastes.
  • 12:20 Meal delivery services with national profiles? We discuss why we think shipping meals across the country is a terrible idea, and why Portable Chef will always be a local meal delivery service.
  • 16:28 How do you satisfy a sweet tooth while sticking to a healthy diet, and even when you’re trying to lose weight? I’ve got some strong, sweet opinions about good ways to include desserts.
  • 19:48 We cook hundreds of different dishes for our clients every week. How do we come up with the recipes? Great questions; we discuss that here.
  • 21:56 We discuss the importance of ingredients sourcing at Portable Chef, specifically looking at Iliamna Fish Company, our salmon provider, and why their product is so superior to 99.999% of all salmon available to buy.

 

What is That Dust on the Bottom of a Thomas’ English Muffin?

July 13, 2015 4 Comments

This is a tale of deception, love, and intrigue. And breakfast.

As time goes on, I buy less and less stuff at supermarkets. In fact, the only thing I can think of that I still buy that you can only get at a conventional supermarket is the Thomas’ English Muffin.

If I’m going to have starchy white foods on the regular, they better kick some serious tush. Simply put, Thomas’ delivers the goods. Bread gives you something texturally that nothing else does, and Thomas’ English Muffins give you something texturally that few other breads do; toasted properly, no can defense.

But what the hell is that stuff they put on the bottom? I thought about it while watching Angela split a muffin in two a few days ago. Morning sunbeams illuminated a remarkably full cloud of tiny particles that were cascading onto the kitchen floor. You actually can’t handle a Thomas’ at all without these things flying off the bread; when I make two at a time, decades of experience have taught me that my first order of business has got to be to get above the sink and scrape the two together like I’m starting a fire.

(more…)

Why Won’t My Milk Foam Up, Dammit?

August 29, 2013 110 Comments

I have an awesome milk provider.  Every weekend an Amish couple brings me raw milk, which would be illegal if it weren’t, um, for my pet; this stuff is a game-changer.  For the first time since 1985, I now sit down and have a glass of milk from time to time.  A straight-up glass of milk!

The biggest use we have for milk at Portable Chef Estates, though, is in cappuccinos (“cappuccini,” for the pedants among us, and I include myself in that crew).  Since receiving a Nespresso machine as a wedding gift, I’ve been on a pretty consistent four-cappuccinos-a-day habit.  The coffee’s very good but not the best by any stretch; what puts these machines over the top is how foolproof and effortless they make the process of making good coffee.  You turn it on, wait a few minutes, put in a pod of coffee, press a button, and that’s it: espresso.  To foam the milk, there’s a separate device, but just as easy: fill with milk to the line, press a button.  There’s no tamping, no cleaning, no nothing.  It is the best coffee you can make on a moment’s notice with such minimal effort.  And that’s worth a lot.

A key part of the cappuccino is the milk; a key part of the milk is the foam. Foam is what separates a cappuccino from a latte; while the foam-to-milk ratios vary from place to place, even among top-tier venues, a point of agreement is that a cappuccino is mostly foam; a latte is mostly milk.

Which made things very uncomfortable when one morning, my milk wouldn’t foam up.

It was one of the pretty frequent weeks in which my milk people didn’t deliver the goods; customer service is not the forte of the Amish. So I got a half-gallon of organic milk from the store, popped some in the milk frother, and started it up.

Nada. The milk frothed up just a little bit, and that foam disappeared as soon as the frother stopped moving around.

What gives? I did a little research.

(more…)

This is How We Do It: Eggplant

August 5, 2011 2 Comments

NOTE: It’s come up several times in these pages that when it comes to cooking, technique is the thing. Being able to follow a recipe is a skill in and of itself and a very important one; however, at a certain point that method stops teaching you much. To go further, (more…)

The Godfather-Goodfellas Pasta Sauce Smackdown

April 15, 2010 4 Comments
I’m gonna go make the pasta, make the pasta

Of this there is no doubt: The Godfather and Goodfellas are the two best mob movies of all time. (NOTE: By The Godfather I mean the Godfather Parts I and II, which are parts of the same story and are both derived from the original Mario Puzo novel; the DVD of Part III, which I had to buy in order to get the first two films, is useful only for its present function: preventing the condensation emanating from my drink from ruining the table as I write).

But which of the two is top dog is a subject of much debate. Mainstream America has cast its vote: the user poll at the Internet Movie Database has Godfather as the #2 movie of all-time, with Goodfellasat #14. The #1 movie ever, as determined by us, the Internet-using public, made me do a double-take and I’ll bet it will make you do the same. Actually, take a second right now to guess what the best film of all-time is before clicking through to see it. America says you’re wrong.

(more…)

The 2009 Beef Draft, pt. 3: Thoughts of Our Cow

November 13, 2009 1 Comment
Delicious.

This is the type of blog entry that I set out not to write.

The problem I have with many blogs is that they tend to be more for the writer than the reader. I’ve read too many whose authors use the forum work out their own issues, to describe their day, or to do a host of other things that have nothing to do with making the reader’s valuable time worthwhile.

That’s not what I want to do here. I aspire first and foremost to make this column an enjoyable and informative read for the people who choose to invest their time here. I want to be entertaining and educational, Fat Albert-style: Coming at you with cooking and fun. And if you’re not careful, you may learn something before it’s done. Hey, hey, hey! But I think this blog installment may develop a distinct “get some stuff off my chest” feel – if that’s how it reads I apologize in advance.

portable_chef_beef_draft-1

The Beef Draft is all about cooking and fun. But there is one particularly not fun part of the draft, and it would be unfair to gloss over it:

Today the steer we bought was slaughtered.

(more…)

The 2009 Beef Draft, pt. 2: The Burger-off

November 3, 2009 No Comments
And in this corner, weighing one pound...
And in this corner, weighing one pound...

portable_chef_beef_draft-smIn part 1 of this column, we went over the raisons d’être for the Beef Draft, chief among them being: ensuring a steady supply of sustainably-raised beef, learning something about our food, and IT’S A GODDAMN BEEF DRAFT!

Two providers met the criteria for responsible raising of cattle, capability to deliver on a whole steer, and ease of sampling: Arcadian Farms and 8 O’Clock Ranch.

Next up: a battle to the death.

(more…)

The 2009 Beef Draft, pt. 1: Predraft Camp

November 2, 2009 1 Comment
Let’s do this thing

Ever since I found out that my favorite steak place, Les Halles on Park Avenue South, gives its animals the full factory farm treatment (warning: that video is gnarly; furthermore, it’s narrated by Alec Baldwin, whose authoritative, gravitas-laden voice makes it very difficult to turn away), I’ve pretty much limited my beef consumption to that which I prepare at home.

And it was there that I started realizing my beef knowledge limitations.

I’m a burger-and-occasional-filet man.  I make a big batch of boeuf Bourguignon once a year or so (side note: Amy Adams’ mangled pronunciation of said dish in the crappy half of Julie & Julia continues to haunt my dreams).  But really, that’s about it.

(more…)

Order Meals

Recent Posts

Archives
"Thank you so much for helping me manage my complicated dietary requirements with custom meals!"
Alice J.New York, NY
"The plan is going great. I've already lost 20 pounds! I would never be where I am without your delicious meals so thank you!"
Melanie G.Brooklyn, NY
"I cannot thank you enough! The food you prepared for me is simply divine. I have never been so excited to eat my meals. I did not expect the diversity and deliciousness. thank you again."
Alexandra H.New York, NY
“I don’t think I’ve eaten this many vegetables in my life, which is an area I was seriously lacking in and not getting enough of. Super delicious meals. I’m hooked!”
Karen G.New York, NY
“This past week’s dishes were delicious! I was practically licking the container.”
Cynara C.Brooklyn, NY
“My husband and I are greatly enjoying the food! We like how diverse and flavorful it’s been and the portions are very filling!”
Rachel S.New York, NY
“I am so happy with this food. I feel great and it is so delicious!”
Megan B.New York, NY

Let's Get Delicious!

It’s a simple, four-step process to get meals custom-made for your tastes.

Order Meals

Questions / Contact